Site logo

United States GP: Post Qualifying press conference

NEWS STORY
17/11/2012

Congratulations Sebastian, brand new circuit, you lost 55 minutes yesterday, and yet you absolutely nailed it today.
Sebastian Vettel: Yeah, I'm very, very pleased with the result obviously. We started off on the right foot I think yesterday. The first practice was very good for us. It was extremely slippery to be honest to start with. Obviously the circuit is brand new, the asphalt is brand new and it takes a while for the track to come in but it's also quite a lot fun to slide around a couple of corners and it just got better throughout. I think you can see the lap times just got quicker. Through qualifying I think we were very happy. In the last section I would have loved to go a little bit quicker. I think I lost a little bit in the first and the last sector. It was a little bit closer than I wanted with Lewis. But overall, fantastic. Obviously, it's very important here to start from the front. We start on the clean side, both of us, so yeah, should be a good race tomorrow.

And your championship rival, down in the ninth place, will probably start eighth. What are your feelings about that?
SV: Yeah, I mean, not much to feel. Obviously we have to look after ourselves and as I said I'm very happy. We had a smooth session, no issues. As you touched on, yesterday afternoon was not ideal, we lost a little bit of time. These things can happen and they might happen again. So you never know and therefore it's the best strategy to keep your down and try to get the best, which I think was the target in qualifying. As I said I'm very happy with the result but so far nobody has scored any points. I think we have seen at the last race how quickly things can change and even starting at the back does give you opportunities, so we need to wait and see. But for us we focus on our race and tomorrow we have the chance to seal the Constructors' Championship for the team so that's what Mark and I will probably be looking out for.

Lewis, a tremendous lap - so, so close. But what about this first corner tomorrow? You're going to be starting alongside Sebastian, going up the hill into that first corner.
Lewis Hamilton: I'm not really concerned about the first corner, I'm more concerned about the dirty side of the grid. I did a launch from it earlier on in P3 and it was quite slippery. No, hopefully tomorrow is just about getting a good start. It's so wide in Turn One, I don't think really much can go wrong there generally... I might be wrong. But obviously I don't want to get in the way of Sebastian's race. However, I do want to win, so I'll try my best to get through cleanly.

Third on the grid for you Mark Webber. At least you'll start on the clean side behind your team-mate. What are your hopes for tomorrow?
Mark Webber: I'm pretty happy with qualifying actually. It's a very tricky venue in terms of tyres, circuit conditions, all those type of things together Seb touched on. It's easy to be out of the window here and not be super competitive if you don't get everything together. I was pretty happy with the last part of Q3. We had to manage a little problem in the car, which in the end I don't think would have costs us a position because the guys obviously were pretty quick and both did very strong lap times. But I'd have liked to have had a little bit more pace but overall I'm happy to the third on the grid. As you say it's certainly up there towards the front and we can have a very, very strong grand prix from there. So, it's a great job from the team. I think Constructors'-wise we've got our eye firmly on that tomorrow, to try and put that to bed and that'll be a huge result for everyone at Milton Keynes and at Renault.

Press Conference

Sebastian, we haven't really seen you going off at Turn 19. Have you been off there?
SV: Yesterday!

How have you been treating it? What is it about Turn 19 that's so difficult and how have you been treating it?
SV: Obviously I tried to stay on the track - it's faster - but it's extremely difficult because obviously you want to carry as much speed as possible into the corner and ideally be as early and aggressive on power as you can. The difficultly, first of all, is that the apex is quite difficult to see, so it's rather easy to overshoot, and then if you are not on the perfect line, there's less grip, you lose the car or if you're a little bit too keen, a little bit too quick on the way in, you tend to lose the rear quite aggressively, and then you have to catch the car in order not to spin. But staying on the track then is quite difficult. I think there are a couple of corners like that on the track. Obviously I think for all of us it was quite a surprise yesterday to start on this track, and it was very, very slippery. It was like driving on ice - and I think the first run would have been quicker on Intermediate tyres, so obviously the asphalt was pretty fresh for all of us. It took a while to come in but I think you see the lap times now just getting quicker and quicker, so the circuit is ramping-up massively.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images

POST A COMMENT

or Register for a Pitpass ID to have your say

Please note that all posts are reactively moderated and must adhere to the site's posting rules and etiquette.

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

 

No comments posted as yet, would you like to be the first to have your say?

Share this page

X

Copyright © Pitpass 2002 - 2024. All rights reserved.

about us  |  advertise  |  contact  |  privacy & security  |  rss  |  terms